Before the Revolution
by derrx004
Summary: A dark pre-Lancer Johnny story. Contains adult language and situations.


Before the Revolution

By Doc

"Someone's looking for you, Johnny."

"Yeah? What else is new?" God, he was tired. All he wanted was some food and to sleep for a week, but every time he showed his face anywhere someone was looking for him.

Jaime behind the bar looked closer at him. "You all right?"

Johnny took a deep breath. No, he wasn't all right. "Fine, just fine. Who's lookin? Friend or foe?"

Jaime nodded in the direction of a table of men in peasant clothes. "Can't say for sure."

There were three of them. As soon as they saw Jaime nod one of the men stood and approached Johnny, sweeping his hat off his head and holding it respectfully in front of him.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Johnny Madrid, but we would like to hire you."

"To do what?" He hadn't intended to sound short, but it was too much trouble to apologize and try again.

The man glanced back at his friends. "Please, come join us?"

Johnny snuck a peek at the table. Nothing on it but pickled eggs, and the last thing he wanted was a goddamn pickled egg.

"Look, I'm real tired. Give me a day and we'll talk." He turned and strode past Jaime, throwing his thumb over his shoulder. "Give 'em some beer and something to eat, on me. Send me a sandwich, and don't let anybody wake me up until noon. At least." He could feel the disappointment from the hiring committee, but damn it, he'd had just about enough of other people for a while.

By the time Jaime showed up with the food and the usual bottle of tequila, Johnny had stripped to his waist and washed the trail dust from the parts of him that needed it most. He had to grab his saddlebags off the little bureau to make a place to eat. He always stayed in Jaime's back room when he was in Sonoyta. It was the only cantina in town, and Jaime's simple son Bembe took good care of his horse.

With a pang in his gut he remembered how as soon as he rode up, Bembe used to run out smiling, offering the pinto a carrot and laughing with pure joy.

Except today, Bembe didn't recognize Johnny when he rode in, because Johnny wasn't riding Chorro. The boy smiled when he finally recognized who was riding the nondescript chestnut, but it wasn't the same. It made Johnny damn near teary eyed to see the kid's face. Bembe couldn't talk, so he didn't ask what happened to the pinto.

Johnny was glad. It meant he didn't have to tell the kid how after he screwed up his last job he went on a bender of historic proportions and that when he finally dried out Chorro was right where he had left him, well hidden in a grove of trees behind a deserted barn, dead.

Even before Johnny had gotten there he knew what he would find. The minute he had started to sober up and remembered where Chorro was he'd been filled with dread. He'd pleaded with the deputy who'd thrown his sorry ass in jail, offered money to anyone in earshot who would go find his hiding spot, and finally begged through the last of his drunken tears for someone, anyone, to go help his horse. Once he was all the way sober he kept trying, but no one cared about a miserable drifter and his horse. When he was finally released he sprinted to the spot, praying someone had found the gelding and cared for him. Maybe someone had stolen him. Johnny ran until he stumbled and fell. He got back up and kept going until he saw what he had done.

The black and white body was on its side. The halter was still on his head, tied to the short picket line between two trees. The bare ground underneath him and around him was cleared of all vegetation, churned into a mess of dried mud and shit. Every tree Chorro could reach had been stripped of its bark and its leaves. One sapling had been chewed clear through. Chorro's eyes were sunken so deep in his skull that maybe they weren't even there.

Johnny sank to his knees, moaning. He touched the horse but pulled his hand back, shuddering at how stiff it was. "No, no. No, Chorro." God damn it all to motherfucking hell. He tried not to think about what the horse's end must have been like. He should have just let him go. He shouldn't have gotten so drunk he'd ended up in jail for so long that a horse would die from thirst. He'd felt so fucking sorry for himself he'd tried to drown his sorrows and all he did was kill his horse.

Johnny pulled his Colt and shoved the barrel into his mouth.

He couldn't bring himself to squeeze the trigger.

God damn him for being a coward. He'd been miles away fucking around while his horse was here dying. And now he was a coward who couldn't even end his own pain. He spit out the taste of the gunmetal and stared at the weapon weighing heavy in his hand.

What good was he? He bashed the gun against his head. It didn't hurt enough. He did it again, and again.

He fell over and curled up on the ground with blood running down his face. The groaning he heard turned out to be him.

Chorro was just another good thing in his life snatched away. Renaldo. Mama. Papa. They were all gone. Maybe he didn't deserve them. What would they think of what he had become? Would they care that he was one of the best? Would they be proud? At least he'd only killed his horse, and not any of them. That was funny. He laughed but it wasn't laughter that came out; he sobbed like a child. He must be crazy. He was empty inside, and he was tired, so tired…

When he woke up Chorro was still dead.

He'd walked, slowly, all the way back to town. He'd cleaned himself up, bought a new horse, and decided to take the first job he could find where he could get himself killed.

When Bembe brought him a cup of hot coffee about noon the next day, Johnny was up and half-dressed. As the boy backed out the door, grinning, Johnny tried to smile back. He scraped some whiskers off his face, finished dressing, and stepped into the cantina.

The peasants were there. He nodded at them as he set his empty coffee mug and the full bottle of tequila on the bar.

Then he sat down to hear what they had to say.

End


End file.
